Small group listens to Collier school district's rezoning plans for Immokalee schools

Twenty-four hours before what is expected to be a volatile rezoning meeting at Golden Gate High School, Collier County School District administrators spoke to a small handful of parents about the rezoning of students in Immokalee Tuesday night.

The district is proposing rezoning 81 students who live in the area of America Way and Peace Way from Lake Trafford Elementary School to Eden Park Elementary School. The district is also proposing to rezone 102 students from the Tara Park Mobile Home neighborhood from Highlands Elementary School to Lake Trafford Elementary School.

The Collier County School Board voted unanimously to use a combination of rezoning and portables in order to bring the Immokalee elementary schools into compliance with the class size amendment. Florida voters passed the amendment in 2002. It requires schools to limit the number of students in core classes like English and math to 18, 22 or 25 students.

The board voted to use a combination of portables and rezoning because the Immokalee elementary schools are almost full, said Chief Operations Officer Michele LaBute. Unlike elementary schools in Naples, Immokalee elementary schools are prekindergarten through sixth grade. The district put the sixth graders into the elementary schools a couple of years ago to ease overcrowding at Immokalee Middle School.

LaBute said the district did consider rezoning students from Pinecrest Elementary School and Village Oaks Elementary School to Estates Elementary School in Naples, but said the students would be on a bus for too long.

"We also don't want to pull students out of the Immokalee community," she said.

About five people attended the meeting Tuesday evening. Many were not being rezoned, but wanted to know how many teachers the district would be adding to their schools.

LaBute said four of the schools would be adding four teachers based on their current enrollments. Eden Park does not need any additional teachers currently, LaBute said, but would get teachers added to the school once the students from Lake Trafford were rezoned to the school.

Highlands Elementary School parent Normal Ramirez wanted to know about the choice and out-of-zone students who attended schools in Immokalee.

LaBute said the board voted in December to allow choice and out-of-zone students to stay, provided they fill out the paperwork each year as they had been doing.

"At this point, all school choice would be stopped because the schools are full," she said. "And the out-of-zoned students, unless it is a real hardship, will stop as well."

The district will hold its fourth rezoning meeting at 6 p.m. at Golden Gate High School, 2925 Titan Lane. The meeting is primarily for students who are being rezoned from Gulf Coast and Palmetto Ridge high schools to Golden Gate High School.